Capturing natural observations is a great activity for someone who wants to practice their writing but doesn't have a specific project in mind. As a writer it helps you learn to pay attention to what is happening around you and to practice your recall, seeing that image or event again later so you can pluck details from it. It is also an excellent way to improve your vocabulary (i.e. plumage or feathers?) and practice constructing powerful sentences. Plus, you never know when you will observe something happening around you that you want to incorporate into your writing. The next time you are out to dinner, and the couple at the next table starts having an argument, don't embarrassedly ignore them. Take notes!
I saw two remarkable things on my drive to work over the last few weeks. I have a very nice commute, about sixteen miles each way and at least half of it in the country surrounded by farm fields. People like to talk about being beach-people or mountain-people, but I'm a farm-person. It brings me joy to watch the land cycle through the seasons of planting, growing, harvesting and falling fallow.
This week, following a plumber's van down a two-lane rural highway, I saw a chipmunk race across the road right into the path of the speeding van. The chipmunk was maybe four inches long with an equal-sized tail and was certain to be crushed by the van's wheels. It darted between the front and rear tires on the driver's side, which was miraculous, but was going to hit the passenger rear tire head on. The chipmunk slammed to a stop and then accelerated behind the wheel, missing death by millimeters. Then I ran it over.
(Writer's note: dead pan humor is difficult on the page. You can't see my face to know I'm joking.)
A couple of weeks ago, when it was still brutally cold, I saw something I had never seen before: a flock of turkeys walking across a frozen pond. I was driving, so I flashed past them without the opportunity to see if they were flailing about, sliding with joy or just ignorant of what was beneath them. I found myself hoping the ice was solid enough to support them all, because I don't know that turkeys can swim. I would love if my life was structured so that I could have just pulled over in the moment and gotten out to observe them for a bit longer, but I was rushing to work.
(Writer's note: while I will never know what happened with those turkeys, now I have something to puzzle over and play with in my writing, and I can do whatever I want with it.)
This week is the 60th anniversary of 'bloody Sunday' when peaceful Black Americans, marching for voting rights, were attacked and horrifically beaten by police while crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge. The images captured by the media horrified the nation in a way very similar to how George Floyd's death, galvanizing calls for change and leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Understanding the timing of this anniversary to the Trump administration's attacks on DEI, immigration, and marginalized peoples, makes those attacks even worse. We cannot retreat from the progress that we have made as a nation to honor the rights of all American to be treated with dignity.
Since Republican leaders at the state and federal level are so sure that there is no such thing as systemic racism, I am willing to cede them that hill. That means, however, that every act of racism must then be an individualized, intentional attack on a person of color rather than the outcome of systemic failures, making us a nation of racists. Have a nice day.
Win a free Kindle edition of Love: a novel of grief and desire: I work with Reader's Favorite on the Kindle book giveaway. If you go to readersfavorite.com/book-giveaway you can sign up for the monthly giveaway. You can scroll through the list of giveaways (over 500 each month) or sort the list by title or author to find Love: a novel of grief and desire and put your name in for this month's drawing. Good luck
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